Mass Effect 3 - Review in Progress and More

February 26th, 2012, 00:13

IGN has a review-in-progress for Mass Effect 3 that will be spread over several entries, just like they did with Reckoning. As you'd expect this is very positive - though the author seems able to ignore some significant issues:

It's also worth noting that a few technical issues arise on the PS3 version as soon as you start playing, too. Fairly serious framerate issues plague the opening cinematic on Earth, and while this particular problem clears up as you play further through the game via future cutscenes, these hitches certainly concerned me early on. Likewise, lip-syncing is almost always off and characters sometimes appear stiff and can even flicker in and out of cutscenes when camera angles change.
The good news is that these problems don't injure a title that relies almost entirely on its otherwise top-notch presentation. If you can get past these sorts of aesthetical hiccups, you'll find a title drowning in a deep, well-fleshed out story surrounded by intriguing characters, both familiar and unfamiliar. Remember that the original Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 also had their own technical problems -- long load times and some severe texture pop-in, for instance -- but that those problems didn't at all erode away the overall story-driven experience.

Didn't the development cycle on this one get extended by a fair amount a while back? I'm starting to get the feeling that developers don't play-test their PS3 versions of multiplatform releases at all.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
Didn't the development cycle on this one get extended by a fair amount a while back? I'm starting to get the feeling that developers don't play-test their PS3 versions of multiplatform releases at all.

Its easier to code for the 360 and the PC than it is for the ps3. That has been a constant challenge for ps3 games since it came out. Also different system configurations and specs but your right it's no excuse.

Im done with anything EA, but recently played Mass Effect 2 with all DLC and really enjoyed it. Its a whole different expierence with the really lengthy DLCs. Too bad for me i will not play to EA/BIO rules anymore.

Definitely buying ME3 because I want to play through the entire trilogy, but I'm not going to pay full price. I'll get it when new copies on Ebay are going for $25-30, which should only be about a month after release if ME2 was any indicator.